Visible Mending

Posted on November 14, 2022 by Lia Pas

Since taking up hand stitching again in 2016, I discovered I needed something simpler to work on in the evenings and on weekends than my very intricate embroidery pieces. I discovered Visible Mending through some embroiderers on Instagram and it’s become an excellent hobby.

The butt of a pair of black jeans with a Japanese wave pattern on them done in grey sashiko stitching.

I started with some simple sashiko mends on my son’s jeans which got more intricate the more I learned about sashiko techniques. Susan Briscoe’s excellent book—The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook—has been a great resource for this.

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Jan-Oct 2022 Creative Things & Forthcoming Work

Posted on October 28, 2022 by Lia Pas

I’m still catching up with posting about all my activities, so here’s what I’ve been up to since January 2022. More interviews and some exciting forthcoming work.

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All the 2021 Things

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Lia Pas

The past two years have been extremely full and my body needed a fair bit of down time. I’m slowly playing catch up with my blog so here’s all the 2021 things!

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Bleeding Vessel

Posted on October 13, 2022 by Lia Pas

At long last I have completed my embroidery piece, Bleeding Vessel. I started the piece 27 July 2020 and finished stitching it 15 June 2022—almost two years.

An embroidery of a uterus stitched in black thread on white linen with texture like a woodcut. The mesometrium spreads like wings, the ovaries are ovals on the mesometrium, and the fimbriae on the ends of the fallopian tubes look like sea anemones. Inside the uterus, the edges of the endometrium are stitched in bright red thread with long and short stitch in a textured leaf pattern. The centre endometrium is filled with the same texture but in burgundy with thinner thread. The edges between the burgundy and the bright red are filled with single strand satin stitch with curlicue edges. There is an apple-sized half circle fibroid on the left upper area of the uterus and a strawberry sized one on the right lower side. Both fibroids are made of red, pink, and cream beads of various sizes. Another strawberry sized section of clear, purple, and red beads is a cyst over the right ovary, and a small section of dark red and purple beads are a polyp inside the endometrium. There are long burgundy strings hanging from the bottom of the endometrium with medium and large red beads on them that extended past the vaginal opening. The initials L. P. are stitched in white on the right side of the image. — Bleeding Vessel (2022). Cotton and nylon thread with glass beads on linen/rayon blend. Stitched area is 42 x 28 centimetres.

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Upcoming Anthology Publication: In Corpore Sano

Posted on November 20, 2018 by Lia Pas

I have reached a point in my recovery from ME/CFS that means I am able to write again! ME/CFS is a neuro-immune disease and some of the symptoms include brain fog and cognitive fatigue. When I first got ill in 2015 I was unable to read or write for any length of time because it would utterly exhaust me. I’m very happy to say that I can now read and write with relative ease again.

Most of my writing these days is in the form of journaling, but earlier this year I submitted some of my embroidery work to an anthology about “challenged bodies” and creative work. As part of the In Corpore Sano anthology I was asked to write about my experience of being a creative person living with a debilitating illness and wrote a fairly long essay about that as well as the autobiographical and therapeutic nature of my embroidery work. Continue reading →

Featured Artist in Synaesthesia Magazine

Posted on February 14, 2018 by Lia Pas

I was recently featured in Synaesthesia magazine as their artist of the month. The piece focuses on the embroidery work I’ve done to illustrate my ME/CFS symptoms.

I was also the rocur (rotating curator) of @IAmSciArt on Twitter for a week in November and you can see more of my embroidery here (though these links will only work until May 2018). There are two threads, one on anatomy-themed embroideries, and the other on my symptomatology embroideries.

I’m currently working on a large anatomy-themed piece that you can check the progress on my Instagram.

Healthwise, I’m very slowly improving after a bit of a downturn in the fall because of a stomach flu. I’m still mostly housebound but have been able to drive myself to a few appointments and attend a few family gatherings. If you want to know more about ME/CFS I recommend watching the documentary Unrest, which is on iTunes and Netflix.